PetGroomBossPro Blog — Running a Mobile Grooming Business

Texting Customers From the Office in a Mobile Grooming Business

Texting is how grooming customers like to talk. They text to move an appointment, to warn you the gate is locked, to ask if you can add nails, and to send a photo of their dog's new haircut to their friends. For a lot of mobile groomers, all of that lands on a personal phone, mixed in with family chats and spam. It works until the business grows, and then it becomes the thing that keeps you up at night.

Why Texts Belong to the Business

Estimates and their follow-ups were covered in Estimates for New Customers and Multi-Pet Homes in a Mobile Grooming Business. Texts are the everyday side of the same conversation.

When customer texts live on one person's phone, they disappear when that person is on a day off, and nobody else can see the history. When they live in the business, tied to each client, anyone in the office can see what was said, and the owner can switch off at night without missing anything important.

Two-Way Texting From the Office

PetGroomBossPro has two-way texting with customers from the office. You send a text from the client's record, and replies come back to the same place. The conversation stays with the client, next to their pets, their visits and their invoices.

That is useful in small ways every day. A customer replies to a reminder with “Can we do 2 instead?” and you see it next to their appointment. A customer texts a new gate code and you update the van notes on the home right then. Nothing gets lost in a personal inbox.

Let the Software Send the Routine Ones

Many grooming texts are the same message every time. Those should go out on their own. PetGroomBossPro sends automated reminders and alerts by text and email, and customers choose which ones they want in the customer app:

• Night before. Tomorrow is grooming day.
• When they're next. The groomer is heading their way.
• When the groomer arrives. The van is outside.

The groomer app also sends automatic on-the-way and arrived texts as the groomer works the route. With those handled, the texts you write by hand are the ones that actually need a person.

Good Texts to Send by Hand

The messages worth writing yourself are the personal ones:

• Offering a specific time to a new customer from Leads
• Telling the next customer you are running a bit behind
• Offering a regular an earlier slot during a quiet week
• Checking in with a customer whose estimate has gone quiet
• Passing on something you noticed during the groom, along with the grooming checklist note
• Letting a customer know about a price change before their next visit

Keep them short, friendly and specific. Use the pet's name. Offer a clear next step, like a day and time, rather than an open question.

Keep It Personal, Not a Blast

Office texting is for conversations with individual customers, not for marketing blasts. A personal message from the groomer is what customers expect and welcome. If you want to reach a group, such as regulars near a quiet day, write to a few of them one at a time. The approach is covered in Filling Slow Weeks in a Mobile Grooming Business.

Respect customers' quiet hours too. Texts about tomorrow are fine in the evening. Texts about anything else can usually wait until morning.

Your Monthly Text Allowance

Every PetGroomBossPro plan includes a monthly text allowance for the US and Canada: 500 texts sent and received on Start ($59/month), 1,000 on Pro ($89/month) and 2,000 on Crew ($199/month). Both the texts you send and the replies you receive count toward it, along with the automatic reminders and alerts.

For most owner-operators, the best way to stay comfortably inside the allowance is to keep messages short and let the automatic alerts do the routine work. Customers who choose fewer alerts in the customer app also use fewer texts.

When the Office Is More Than One Person

Office texting really pays off when the business grows. Once you have a bather, a second groomer or a part-time office helper, everyone can see the same conversations. Office user roles control who can do what. When you take a day off, someone else can answer customers without borrowing your phone. Time away from the business is covered in Taking Time Off From Your Mobile Grooming Business Without Losing Clients.

To see how texting fits with reminders, the customer app and the groomer app, visit the mobile grooming business software page.